


Revisiting the Tower

by Harukami



Category: DRAMAtical Murder, DRAMAtical Murder (Visual Novel), DRAMAtical Murder - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-27 05:34:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2680949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harukami/pseuds/Harukami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If the Princess chooses to come back to the tower, it's no longer captivity, right? </p><p>Aoba and Ren start a new relationship with someone else -- in a rather unusual way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revisiting the Tower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shirobitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shirobitch/gifts).



Aoba thinks about it often: that Ren had said that he thought he felt some traces of Sei's consciousness deep inside him. 

He knows why Ren had been so cautious, of course -- well. There are a lot of reasons, no matter how he looks at it. It's one thing to use your brother's body for a scandalous incestuous relationship when he's dead, never to return; they certainly have felt disgraceful about that off and on, though they know (or at least believe) that Sei has given it to them for this purpose. Thinking about it with the possibility that his brother is still there somehow brings all those dark and spiraling thoughts back -- but that's Sei's choice, isn't it? Aoba is sure it has to be. He knows, with no doubt, that he destroyed Sei's attachment to his body. There's no way Sei's consciousness is forced to remain there any longer. 

If the princess chooses to return to her tower, knowing the door is always open to come and go, that's not actually captivity, is it-? At the very least, it can't be the same kind.

Well, so there's that reason for caution, anyway. As well, Aoba thinks Ren probably doesn't want to get either of their hopes up if it turns out to be nothing. They both want to see Sei badly, Aoba thinks -- Ren doesn't talk about it, doesn't bring it up, but Aoba knows. Since Ren was him, once, Sei is his brother as well. Ren was separated from Sei at birth the way Aoba was. Ren, too, met Sei only once at the end, and only to lose him. 

Aoba leans his head against Ren's chest and cuddles close. It's fine, he thinks, if Sei isn't in this body any longer. He's come to accept it. What they have between them, Sei's final gift, is a miracle in and of itself. He's permitted to love Ren as something outside himself, permitted this adoration.

But if Sei is in there, he thinks, painfully, if Sei is sleeping somewhere deep in there, if Sei is recovering...

He wants to see his brother again.

***

It actually isn't too much later that he does finally see Sei again. It's brief, and at first he's not sure it's happened. He wakes up in Ren's arms, and sees Ren's eyes open. Ren has been watching him sleep, he thinks sleepily, which is _cute_ , and he reaches out to cup Ren's cheek, smiling at him dreamily.

It's not until Ren blinks, and his eyes become their normal color, that Aoba realizes they'd been different.

He freezes, and Ren does as well, drawing a startled breath, catching Aoba's hand on his cheek with his own. "--Aoba?"

"Ren," Aoba says, and then, choked, babbling, he flings himself on top of Ren, sits on him, staring down at him, his hand still on Ren's cheek. "Ren, did you feel -- did you notice--"

"I wasn't -- here," Ren says. "It was like the old days. I could see, but I wasn't controlling this body..." He means, then, when he lived inside Aoba. Aoba still can't remember what that was like, what it felt like, but he knows Ren does. Ren had been aware inside Aoba when Aoba wasn't aware of Ren there. "Aoba, was he--"

"It was Brother," Aoba bursts out. The words sear his lungs with their explosive power. 

Ren blinks rapidly, still half-asleep and not quite processing the enormity, but the realization clearly grows within him, his eyes widening slowly. He takes hold of Aoba's shoulders, draws him down, embraces him tightly.

***

Aoba would feel bad about how eager he is for the next time he gets to see Sei -- he doesn't want Ren to think he doesn't want to see _him_ , or would prefer to have Sei in that body rather than Ren -- if Ren wasn't, very obviously, equally eager.

"I try to call to him," Ren tells him once, as they hold hands and walk together back from Heibon. "But he doesn't answer."

"Well, you said he was sleeping, didn't you?"

"I think so..."

"And it's -- it. Can be hard," Aoba says. "To reach the people inside you from the outside."

Ren glances at him, awkward. "...I know," he says. He means Aoba's Desire, but he also means himself, of course. "I ...remember."

"Not that I think Sei's going to be hopping to other bodies."

"Well," Ren said. "If anyone could without any connection to those bodies, it's him. He sent you a game before you came to meet me in the hospital, didn't he? So he obviously still has his abilities."

"Great. Now I'm going to be wondering if every Allmate I see is looking at me funny."

But he's smiling, and Ren's smiling too, squeezing his hand warmly.

***

The next time is some weeks later. He and Ren are just hanging out in his room; Aoba's working on his computers, and Ren is lying on the bed, reading a book. The room's been silent a little while, no pages turning, and at first Aoba thinks Ren has fallen asleep, but then he begins to wonder. He keeps himself working for a while, trying not to make it obvious that his heart is pounding, that he's planning it out. What should he do if Ren isn't asleep? If someone else is watching him through Ren's eyes gone dark? How should he act, how would he tell Sei he wants to see him? He needs to act quickly if he acts at all, both to not miss his window of opportunity and not give Sei a chance to react to him.

He catches his breath and whirls.

For a moment, he's completely shocked that he was right. Ren's eyes are dark -- no, not _Ren's_ eyes -- his expression is soft, and he's caught completely off guard by Aoba's sudden action. Aoba freezes, despite his entire brain yelling at himself that he has to move now before he misses his chance, and Ren -- Sei's -- mouth opens.

"--Aoba--"

Aoba moves. He shoves himself off the floor, flinging himself bodily toward the bed, grabbing Sei's wrists. "Brother," he says. "Don't go!"

Surprisingly, those eyes don't regain their gold color right away. Dark, void-like eyes search his face, Sei's mouth a little parted. It looks strange on him, Aoba thinks. Not the expression -- the expression is pure Sei, at least from what he can recall of him. But Sei's face has been changing to accommodate Ren as the soul ruling it; his jaw has broadened some, his brow line's strengthened, and of course there are his teeth. Seeing Sei's expression on Ren's face starts a pang in him. 

"I have to go, Aoba," Sei says, gentle. He opens his hands, wrists still held by Aoba, the gesture one of pleading. "I'm so very tired."

"Stay a little longer!" Aoba insists; he says it with more desperation than kindness. "Please, there's so much I want to ask you about, so much I need to say-!"

"Aoba," Sei says again, in the same gentle tone. "I'm tired. Please."

Aoba shakes his head furiously. He feels like if he lets go now, if he gives Sei permission, he'll lose him again. He feels like Sei will leave, will accept that 'getting caught' means he can't come out again, and that he won't see Sei any more. "Please, not yet," he says. "I've missed you. Please, Brother -- Sei--!"

Sei looks pained. He closes his eyes, pleading hands just going limp in Aoba's touch. "Why...?"

"Why? Why do I want to talk to you? Why would I miss you?"

"Yes," Sei says. His eyes slide open again, just traces of emptiness behind those dark lashes. "Why?"

His heart's pounding so hard that he almost can't get any words out. "I have to," he says. "I didn't think I'd ever see you again. I don't want to lose you. Why are you here? I thought you were going for good, until Ren said he thought you were sleeping inside him. How?"

"I..." Sei hesitates, eyes opening a little more. There's reticence in his body, the hunch of his shoulders, the slumped line of his neck. "Because you begged me to live with you."

"You denied me!"

"I did," Sei says. "And I left. ...I wanted to give you so many things. But I'm a greedy person, Aoba. I'm not generous."

Aoba's throat is dry. Still, he has to keep going. "Is this greed? I thought you wanted to leave."

"I did. But at the end, when you granted my wish, I felt your love," Sei says. He draws a ragged breath. "You didn't know me, but you loved me enough to kill me. So I wanted to do something for you, and I wanted to feel that love."

"You've done -- so much--!"

"There's that too," Sei says, smiling a little. "I wanted to see you and Ren get to be happy together...so, I'm selfish. But I'm tired. There's so much damage in me. Let me sleep."

Aoba squeezes his wrists, then loosens his grip. He can't hold onto Sei this way. He knows that much. "I want to see you again," he says. "Please. Promise me you won't go for good. Promise me we can talk again."

"I don't want to make any promises," Sei says. "I'm sorry, Aoba."

And he's gone. It's Ren's wrists in his hands again, Ren staring at him in shock, his abandoned book between them.

Tears welling up, Aoba says, "I don't understand, Ren. Is he really in that much pain still? I thought I'd helped him."

Ren shakes his head. "I -- heard but I can't understand his feelings," he says. "I was just hearing it from the inside, not... from his point of view. I can tell that he doesn't want this body to be his. He wants it to be mine. But maybe it'd be better if he came back to--"

"I don't want to lose you either!" Aoba almost yells, and pulls Ren forward against him. Ren goes easily, falls onto Aoba, tumbles them both halfway off the bed. "I just want to be able to see him too!"

"...Yes," Ren says, after a few moments. He seems to understand, at least; the guilt in his voice, the sense of non-belonging has faded into just hesitancy. "I...want to also. I don't want to lose you. And I want to see him."

Aoba nods, hugs Ren tight, just tries to hold Ren there until Ren's natural sense of insecurity fades, until Ren holds him back firmly. Then Aoba lets out a breath. "Can he hear me? Ren."

"I don't know, Aoba. But when I wasn't the one in control, I could hear what you two were talking about. I don't know if it's the same, though. I'm meant to be a secondary personality. To live on the inside. So it might be different for me than for him."

There's still a touch of uncertainty there. "I love you as someone who can live on the outside too, Ren."

"I know. I'm sorry, Aoba."

Aoba muffles his face in Ren's hair, breathes in its scent. It's all Ren, it's that familiar smell, and his heart and body both ache. "If he can hear us from the inside, if we talk about him, maybe he'll hear."

"Maybe. I don't know."

A sudden realization hits Aoba. "...Does that mean he could feel it, hear it when we have sex...?" 

"...I don't know, Aoba." That's with even more uncertainty. Well, for good reason. Maybe they should stop? 

Ren's looking at him with that face too, the kicked, uncertain look of someone who suspects he may have done something terrible. It's not a look Aoba can bear, and he lets out a rough breath. "...Well, he gave us this body to use, and he knew our relationship... I, I just hadn't expected him to be there too."

"No..."

"But nothing's changed if that's the case, right?"

"No...?" Ren hazards.

"Right," Aoba says, and kisses Ren.

They make love slowly, uncertainly, which is a bit unusual for them. Usually they go at it rough and fast and urgently. Ren still isn't used to human reactions, to arousal; Aoba had still been a child when Ren had left, and he'd spent the rest of the time in a robot body. So once he's turned on, that's it, they're at each other. But this time, they move like they're not sure if someone's watching, if they're doing something they have to be furtive about, if it's even possible to be furtive. And they move, Aoba thinks, like they want a chance to feel everything, share their hearts, reassure each other.

After, he feels better about things, thinks, from the way Ren is gently stroking fingers down his side, that Ren does too.

"Ren," Aoba murmurs.

"Hm?"

"Do you think Sei is sleeping like he said he wanted to?"

"I don't know," Ren says. "...It would be polite."

Aoba laughs softly. "...I'm actually starting to think he might not be polite."

"Do you think so? Maybe not," Ren says.

Certainly, Sei is manipulative. Certainly, he's sneaky, and _he's_ the furtive one. He lured them in, managed the situation to make Aoba come to him, sprang his own death on Aoba, and has, apparently, been lurking all this time without Aoba knowing. But that's fine too; that's another part of his brother that Aoba had never had the chance to know and now is beginning to understand. 

"Ren, can I talk to you about him?"

Ren shifts, pulls Aoba into his arms so Aoba can lean on his chest; they cuddle each other together warmly. "Mm," Ren says.

"I think," Aoba says, "I understand why he might want not to come out and be a real person again. The world's hurt him badly, hasn't it? And the people who hurt him are also the only ones who taught him how to interact with the world. So he probably doesn't have a good idea of how people feel about anything. Maybe he saw your grief and pain as your body recuperated in the hospital after he gave it to you. Maybe he put his mind out somewhere and saw mine, after killing him and losing you. I'm sure he knows that giving you his body was something that was initially terrifying, sad, painful to us both."

"It was," Ren says. "I heard you calling me, and I couldn't go to you. Aoba, there's nowhere I want to be but at your side. His body was far too damaged to move then; I couldn't even wake up. But -- even then, it's a gift. I can walk with you, hold your hand as we walk. I can talk to other people as my own person, love you as someone else. So it's amazing now."

Aoba nods against Ren's chest, listening to that heartbeat under his ear speed up as Ren thinks about it, then slow down again after. "Yeah. It's amazing now, but at the time, his gift must have felt a little sour to him. I know he anticipated our reunion. He sent me a game right as you recovered well enough for me to come see you, after all."

"So he was watching."

"So he was watching," Aoba agrees. "He saw our grief, but he also saw our joy when we were together again. I wonder how that must have felt to him?"

"I imagine it would have been a complicated feeling," Ren says. "It's what he wanted, finally coming true. But it's also the sense of doing something for other people for the first time in his life, for someone's happiness being the result of his actions."

Aoba nods, quiet. "I think that was probably both wonderful and hard. Maybe he wanted more."

"Yes..."

"But he's still hurting."

"Yes."

"It took you a year to recover, Ren, from what his body had been through," Aoba says softly. "I imagine it'll take a lot longer for his heart and his mind."

Ren nods too, stroking fingers down Aoba's back. "But what you're saying is... if he wants to do that, to recover instead of to avoid, he doesn't have to be alone."

"He's definitely not alone."

For a few moments, Ren is silent. And then he kisses the top of Aoba's head. "I love you," he says, softly. "Aoba."

"Wh-- what's with that, all of a sudden!"

"You're amazing."

Aoba sputters, pushes away a little. Ren still has a slight look of guilt for his own existence, but he's smiling also, gold eyes light. "All right, that's enough of that sappiness, hey," Aoba says, sulking a little.

"Aoba, you write letters to your Desire, don't you?"

A little guilty himself, Aoba freezes. "Huh? Well -- I mean, sometimes. Since I can't hear him, I don't know how well we integrated or if he ever still feels trapped and like I can't hear him, so -- yeah, I mean sometimes, I put notes in my pockets and stuff so if he happens to take over and read them, he knows I'm thinking about him --"

"I don't know if he can hear me, or see out, or hear any of the things we just talked about," Ren says. "Maybe I can do that too. Notes."

Aoba's heart overflows almost helplessly, like it has become too full to hold any more emotions and bursts in his chest, pounding hard, his love spilling throughout his body. Ren's perfect, he thinks. Ren and he will help Sei together. They'll manage somehow. "It can't hurt, right?" he agrees.

***

Aoba doesn't ask Ren what he writes about when he he sees Ren scribble a note and put it in his pocket, and he doesn't check any of the old discarded notes which, after living in Ren's pocket for a while, end up in the garbage. He doesn't know if Sei is reading them or not, or if Sei even needs to read them but can see Ren writing them; he doesn't know how much consciousness Sei has at any given time, if he's always observing or if he's just absent, a fragment of identity sleeping under the comforting weight of Ren's inner voice, of not having to be responsible for his own body any longer.

He thinks, whatever is developing between Ren and Sei should be something they're allowed to have to himself. It would be terribly easy for him to interfere in everything. But if they're going to manage this somehow, Ren and Sei have to develop their own interactions, as Aoba has with Ren, as Aoba hopes he will have with Sei.

He does notice 'moments of Sei' increasing, though he doesn't know if it's incidental or tied to the notes or to Ren and he talking about Sei or anything else. But Ren will come to pick him up from work and his eyes will slide dark, then back to normal. Or they'll be just hanging out on the bed, reading, legs draped over each other, and he'll hear a sigh from Ren that doesn't sound like Ren's voice. Things like that.

Once, it happens while they're kissing, curled together in bed. The lights are out, so it's not like he can see Ren's eyes clearly regardless. Aoba likes these long moments of kissing, slow and sweet, before it gets to be too much to just be kissing and has to roll over into sex, though he likes the sex as well, of course. But this is nice, it's sweet, and there's no way he should know the moment it stops being Ren.

But there's something different about how Ren is kissing him, and even though he can't be sure, he breaks the kiss, draws a shaky breath, and ventures, "Brother, is part of the reason you're trying to hide because you want this?"

Silence for a moment in the darkness, and then Sei's voice, "Wouldn't you find that really shameful, Aoba?"

It's not like it's untrue. It would be pretty shameful, in a way. To lose his brother, then drag him back to life with an incestuous relationship. But it's hard to wrestle up the embarrassment. He's already lived through all these thoughts once with Ren. Ren, who was a part of him, Ren who was wearing his brother's body. He had to fight the shame and humiliation, fight the sense that this was masturbatory and incestuous and wrong, and find happiness through it. Even then, he'd had to think about his brother's intentions, _guess_ at his brother's intentions with no evidence to go off of, and come to the conclusion that whether or not Sei himself wanted this, Sei had no particular shame at the thought that his body could be used for incestuous things, Sei offered it up knowing that it would become the vehicle for Aoba and Ren to be together. That had to at least be as weird as his dead, bodiless brother possessing his old body and longing for some kind of physical connection. Maybe less weird. They'd never grown up as brothers, not once, and they both had once been connected, then had that denied them. It's not like Aoba would ever claim this was normal, but it's not like he can find it in himself to be terribly shocked by it either, even with his natural reticence against the abnormal.

"Well," Aoba says. "Life's weird."

Sei is silent at that, like he doesn't know what to say. 

"It's not like it's something I think I'd just, you know, assume," Aoba says. "Actually, if you're doing this because you think _I'd_ want it, you should stop."

"So you don't want it."

"I don't want you giving up more of yourself for what you think I want," Aoba says acerbically, and pinches Sei's cheek. Sei doesn't react at all, which spoils the effect a little, but Aoba doesn't let go. "Actually, since you think you're selfish, I'd worry a lot that you'd be doing things because you think I want them, not because you do."

Sei makes a soft curious noise.

"Hm?" Aoba asks forcefully, and lets go of Sei's cheek. 

A sigh at that; he feels Sei shift, touch his cheek where Aoba had pinched him. He doesn't rub it, or otherwise try to take the sting away; if anything, his touch feels curious, like he's trying to understand something about it. "You love Ren a lot."

"I do," Aoba says, feeling his cheeks color a bit; even though, in this darkness, it's not like anyone can see them.

"It feels nice, to touch on that love a little."

Aoba bites his own lower lip, concerned. "But do you want a brother's love, or a lover's...?"

"I am your brother, after all."

"I'm starting to notice you avoid directness," Aoba says, and doesn't add an 'except when trying to get me to kill you', because that would be a mood kill.

Sei makes another noise at that, plaintive. "...I'm sorry. I'm tired."

"I know you're tired. Answer me, though. Brother?" It's hard to be so assertive when he knows Sei just wants to leave again, but he needs answers, needs to _hear_ Sei answer.

A long pause, and he thinks Sei has to have gone away. But then Sei murmurs, "I'm sorry, Aoba. I don't have any real concept of family, but I want it. I don't have one of sexual love, and I want it. If you ask me to pick which one of them I want from you, I can't. I know which one I should pick, but that doesn't mean I can pick it. But that has nothing to do with you."

Aoba tries not to let himself overthink it; there's no point in overthinking it. He's lovers with someone who had once been himself. He's lovers with his brother's body already. If his brother wants a brotherly relationship, and also wants a sexual one, that's an answer, isn't it? It's the answer he asked for.

He leans forward and kisses Sei again. 

Sei doesn't kiss back, mouth soft and pliant to Aoba's lips, his teeth, his tongue. He's passive long enough that Aoba has to pull back, guilt panging inside him. 

"Brother?"

"You too. You already," Sei says, "did something you didn't want to because I wanted it. I don't want that to define us, Aoba."

"It's not that," Aoba protests. "It's --" He wants to see Sei's smile, he does want Sei to have what he wants, he wants ...what exactly?

"I should go. I've interfered enough."

"Let me love you," Aoba says.

Ren lets out a sigh; Sei is gone. "Aoba--"

"...I'm sorry, Ren," Aoba says. The previous time, Ren had heard what Sei and he talked about, so he barges ahead without assuming Ren could be ignorant of anything. "Is it fine? Sharing me like this. I don't want --" he doesn't want to lose Ren, disturb Ren, make Ren feel secondary, make Ren feel like he was just a way for Sei to get back on his feet. Suddenly, it all seems too hard and he feels tears well up in his eyes, choking in his throat. "I love you. But I want to reach out to brother. I don't want to hurt you, Ren, I --"

"It's unusual," Ren admits. "And a little hard. But I --" he touches Aoba's face, his tears, his hands gentle. "If you still want me, it's fine."

"I do!!" Aoba chokes, doubling against him, pressing his wet face into Ren's neck. "I love you, I _love_ you!"

Ren tucks his face into Aoba's hair. "...It's not cheating on me, it's not abandoning me. Aoba. It's okay."

"Is it?!"

"I want to help him too," Ren says. "...I want to love him too. Our brother."

"Yes... but..."

"Aoba. Please. The pleasure is mine."

Aoba chokes on his tears again, clings close to Ren, and cries; unsure what's happening, where it goes from here, what they're doing. Ren holds him in return, and Aoba takes strength in those warm, trembling arms, in Ren's reliability and love.

***

Once they're calmer, they come up with a plan.

***

It happens three and a bit weeks later. Aoba is heading off work after a delivery, meeting up with Ren, and when they meet, Ren scratches at his ear. It's a natural gesture, subtle, and even having planned to look out for it, Aoba almost misses the significance of it.

It means: "I think Sei is paying attention right now." 

There's no way to know for sure, but it's the closest they get. So now's the time to act. It's a good time for it, at least, off work with no need to hurry home and do anything at all. Aoba draws a breath in and lets it out, reaches to take Ren's hand. "Hey, Ren?"

"Aoba." Ren's tone is one of acknowledgment. 

Surely Sei has caught on to the nervous way Aoba has taken Ren's hand, the nervous way Ren responds to it. "Come with me?"

Ren left it to Aoba to plan, so he wouldn't be able to give too much away when they decided to take action. Probably, Sei can feel the deliberateness of this, but he has no idea what they're being deliberate about, so it can be a surprise anyway. Hopefully, they'll keep his attention long enough out of sheer curiosity.

Aoba leads Ren through the streets, hand warm in his, until they get to a coffee shop, drags him inside. "Go ahead and order whatever you want," Aoba says. "Sei."

Ren's eyes slip dark like a shadow passing over them, and Sei opens his mouth, closes it. "Aoba, what are you...doing?"

"I'm ordering for myself," Aoba says pointedly, and smiles nicely at the waitress when she stops at her table. "A coffee, please, and dorayaki. Sei?"

Wide-eyed, Sei looks between Aoba and the server. "I -- ah -- Aoba, will you order for me?"

Aoba looks at him, calculates what he knows Ren likes to eat and what neither of their bodies can handle, and smiles at the server. "Okay. For him, a coffee also, but can you give an assortment of macarons? Thank you..."

As the server leaves, Sei lowers his gaze to the table, fingers spreading on its smooth, shiny surface. "Macarons, is it... I've seen them before. They always look very colorful."

"Yeah," Aoba says. "Parfaits are a bit more traditional, but neither of us can digest milk very well, and it wouldn't be much of a date if I gave you a stomachache."

Sei's eyes flick back up at Aoba. "A ...date?"

"I understand it's normal to ask you out first," Aoba drawls, resting his chin on his hand, almost irritable, "So forgive me, okay?"

"I..." Sei blinks rapidly. It looks a little strange on Ren's adapted features, but cute too. His cheeks slowly go red. "So, we're on a date."

"We're on a date."

"A date..."

"Are we going to just keep repeating this?" Aoba asks.

"You're supposed to want to repeat a date, aren't you?" Sei says, a little impish. His face relaxes slowly, so he's smiling shyly down at his hands again, as if they fascinate him. "To go on more than one. That would mean you're 'dating'."

Aoba laughs a little; can't quite help it. It's all absurd. "Yeah, that's right. Then we'd be dating."

"Are we dating?"

"We're on a date, aren't we?"

"Yes, but you didn't ask me out first."

As their coffees and treats arrive, Aoba falls silent, thanks the waitress, waits until she's gone again before picking up his cup and daring to look at Sei again. He wonders how much she overheard -- well, whatever, though! He's already dating Ren, and just because he doesn't tell anyone didn't mean it isn't probably obvious. Maybe he should say these things aloud more often anyway. "So," he says. "Do you want to go out with me?"

It's Sei's turn to fall silent. He picks up a macaron -- purple, probably lavender-flavored -- and turns it around in his fingers, like he's marveling at the color of it against his skin. "Is it okay?"

"I'm asking you out."

"But is it okay to...?"

"If it wasn't okay, I wouldn't ask you out."

Sei looks up at him again. It seems shy, but Aoba realizes there's something else under it as well. Caution, withdrawal. "Then, I can go out with you?"

"Sure," Aoba says.

"...You haven't called me 'brother'," Sei says. "Does that mean you'd rather have this relationship?"

Aoba makes a choked noise, feels himself go bright red, and ducks over his dorayaki to cover the expression. "It's more just that I have to still live in this town, you know!"

"It would probably be hard to look your friends in the eye if they thought you were dating your brother," Sei says.

"Haah..." Aoba exhales loudly, and sips his coffee before looking up at Sei. "Yeah. Even if I am."

"Even if you are," Sei echoes. He and Aoba look at each other for a long moment, maintaining eye contact; then Sei glances down again, raising the macaron to his lips and taking a careful bite. It crinkles under his teeth; he chews slowly, letting himself savor it. Aoba thinks of how that must feel, the flavor spreading in Sei's mouth, the texture of the crisp outside, the soft, gooey inside, the way it sticks to the teeth and rolls against the tongue.

Sei smiles. 

Aoba relaxes a little, watching that. It's kind of cute, actually. Sei may have had gifts surrounding him when Aoba found him in the tower, but those seemed like some kind of gesture of complacency. Aoba doubts he was given sweets that he actually wanted to eat, if he was given any at all. "How is it?" he asks.

"It's sweet," Sei says softly.

***

Sei switches back as they walk home from the date, and does so without any real warning; one moment, he's walking at Sei's slow, measured pace, watching his feet on the sidewalk, and the next, his hand tightens into Ren's usual grip, and Ren's head comes up to turn so he can watch Aoba instead, how they usually walk together. They've tripped over things because of it before.

"Aoba," Ren says. "That went well?"

"I think so," Aoba says. "I'm happy, anyway."

"Yes..." Ren seems a little hesitant, and Aoba can't quite stop how concerned he feels at that. "It was unusual."

Aoba bites his lower lip. "Was it bad?"

"No... that's why it was unusual," Ren says. "Even with all our preparations, I thought it might be. I thought I might feel..." He doesn't finish the sentence.

But he doesn't have to. Aoba's aware. He remembers how shut off Ren felt, how it manifested in desperate pleas spread all over the walls in his Scrap. He's sure that, as much as the relationship itself is strange and likely to raise insecurities, being pushed into the background is more so.

Carefully, he asks, "But you didn't?"

"It ...it's weird, Aoba," Ren says, and gives him a pleading look, trying to find an explanation. "This body often doesn't feel like mine. Maybe because I don't have a body of my own. Your body was yours. The Allmate Ren's body was an object, not a body. This body is Sei's. I thought that something like that, observing someone else in this body on a date with -- the man I love -- would make me feel more like that." 

Aoba starts blushing at the way Ren's put it, but Ren's not done.

"But instead I felt... like... this is my body," Ren says. "Even when I was watching, I knew I'd get it back. It felt like I was giving a gift to my brother, not like he was taking his rightful place in his own body. Even though he's the one who gifted it to me--!"

He sounds worried now, guilty again, and Aoba squeezes his hand. "Ren," he says. "Once something's given to you it becomes yours."

"I suppose..."

"You're letting him use the thing he gave," Aoba says. "He's not taking it back."

"...Yeah."

Ren's smiling a little now, that shy, blushy smile. Aoba can't help but grin in return. There's something silly about this, he thinks, two grown men walking together down the street, staring at each other and blushing and smiling, but whatever. He's been doing way weirder things than this lately. "So it finally feels like yours, when you have something to compare it to?"

"Well, it--" Ren begins, and then they walk into a sign post.

***

The date seems to change something. Ren reports that the notes are disappearing from his pockets. At first they're not replaced with anything, but after a few weeks, they get replaced with other notes, or are scribbled over. These notes don't have words -- it's just drawings. Ren doesn't say what was in the original notes and Aoba doesn't ask, but Ren says that the notes come back with words underlined, or with a careful heart drawn on the back, or a new scrap of paper that just has a rough sketch of a smiling face. Things like that. Even if Sei doesn't want to use his words, he's communicating.

Aoba, in return, finds that having dated Sei once, he's more comfortable with the idea of doing it again. He's not going to tell anyone -- honestly, it's nobody's business, he has no idea how that conversation would go... and anyway, it's not like he's actually worked up the nerve to tell anyone he's dating _Ren_ , or who and what Ren is to him, so one thing has to happen before anything else can.

But, as it had been with Ren -- he finds himself just accepting things now. Sei is his brother, and he's dating him too. Sei is sharing a body with Ren, who used to be himself. If he puts it into words, it sounds silly, but the simple facts are ones that he finds he's comfortable with. Since Ren's comfortable with them too, there's no problem.

All these things which should be so difficult are so easy, he thinks, a bit surprised at himself. It's so easy to overthink everything, but when he just steps back, it's actually fine.

***

He's out walking with Ren one day when Sei turns his head and says, "Aoba, will you come with me?"

Aoba doesn't question it. "Sure. Where to?"

"Mm. It's a bit of a walk," Sei says. But Ren's body is hardy now, and Sei seems a little surprised by it as they walk through the city. "It's strange how things change."

"Well. Things change when you work on them," Aoba says. He doesn't want to undercut Ren's accomplishments. Sei's body was devastated when Ren was given ownership of it, and a year of hospitalization didn't help that. His rehabilitation was slow and agonizing and the walks they go on are as much to keep his muscles strong as simply to enjoy them. 

"I suppose so," Sei says.

They're part way through the Northern district when Aoba realizes their destination. He tightens his hand a little on Sei's and doesn't protest it, though he can't help the flicker of unease at the realization.

They pass through the torn-down wall of what used to be Platinum Jail. The district is more completely occupied than it ever had been, of course, now that the majority of the population isn't kept out of it. Rather than shutting society out of Toue's utopia, it's now just a nice district -- and one that didn't need to raise prices; it had already had enough money poured into it to keep the members having whatever they wanted for free, so now it doesn't have to charge more than what's necessary to maintain it with no memberships any longer. So rather than becoming a luxury district, the prices are reasonable. Going to the theatre here, the aquarium, even catching flights is possible -- not rock bottom prices or anything, but possible. 

But they don't go shopping, don't go to any of the food stalls or residences. Sei keeps walking, heading to the main plaza.

Oval Tower's remains still aren't fully cleared; it was a huge, dominating structure, and after the dust had settled, rebuilding it or tearing the rest down wasn't the huge priority that making the district itself usable by Midorijima residents was. The smaller bits of rubble have been cleared out, but the wreckage of the tower sits like some kind of monument still.

Sei drops Aoba's hand, goes up to it, and puts a hand on a sheet of white rock. After a moment, he sighs, lowering himself to sit on a pile of rubble.

Hesitant, Aoba follows him, sits next to him. "Brother?"

"I think I wanted to say goodbye," Sei says, then cocks his head, as if listening. "No, that's not quite it, is it? I said goodbye so thoroughly. But I'm not sure I've let it go. I spent my life in this. All of it. And I don't resent that? I'm starting to think I should resent that."

" _I_ resent it," Aoba says. He takes Sei's hand again.

Sei laughs softly, lowering his gaze, eyelashes hiding his dark eyes from sight. His fingers curl lightly against Aoba's, more like he's touching with his whole hand than like he's holding on. "I know. You didn't know me, but you wanted me once you knew. And then, I made sure you'd not get to know me at all."

"...I don't resent you for that," Aoba says.

"I'm starting to think you should," Sei says.

They sit in silence for a while in the wreckage of Oval Tower.

"Aoba, you know," Sei says. "I killed my father, here, and I made my brother kill me."

"You didn't kill Toue," Aoba says. "Toue killed himself."

"Mm. Toue was..." Sei gets that considering look again, then rephrases. "Toue felt that people take action but the results are determined by fate. Human will only exists as a struggle against fate. That's why he felt so strongly, I think, about controlling others. His own life was meaningless to him except insofar as if he could predict what fate wanted, he could fall in line with it. If he figured out the way to match fate, he would be rewarded by being correct. If he couldn't, then he would lose, and he would neither have control of his own destiny nor would he have control of anyone else's."

"He nearly destroyed everyone I knew," Aoba says flatly.

Sei smiles, soft. "I'm not saying it so you forgive him," he says. "But that's how he was. I manipulated you into coming to the Tower to stop Toue and kill me. And then, even if you weren't able to succeed, I had planned to destroy the tower, as you saw. Toue didn't live to see that end, and died thinking just that he had misunderstood the fate of the world, and thus would die. But it was a weighted game. If you stopped him, he'd kill himself. If you didn't, I'd destroy the tower. I'm sure there were ways I could be stopped, or reasons I'd change my mind, but that's not fate. It's human will and it's human whim. In the end, the game he was playing was only in his own head."

Aoba says, "You know, I can understand a lot of things, but I don't think I can understand someone who sees humans as just something to control."

"Mm," Sei says. "Regardless, I made sure my father would die."

Toue isn't really Sei's father. Aoba thinks of saying it, and doesn't. It's Sei's opinion on things that matters.

"I'm outside of the tower now," Sei says. "I'm with my brother now. Neither of those things makes sense."

"It's what we have, though," Aoba says.

They sit in silence a while longer, then Sei gets up, tugs on Aoba's hand. "Let's go on a date," he says. "I haven't been to a lot of places here, but I know about them."

They end up going to a movie theatre. They watch a weird foreign film -- something about cat-people and cannibalism and some dark consuming void -- which Aoba isn't sure he understands, but it's not like it really matters; the main part is that Sei leans his head on Aoba's shoulder during the film, they hold hands, and it's dark, and close, and intimate, and he maybe has a weird thought of wondering if this is what things used to be like before they were separated. 

(Probably, he follows up on his own thought sarcastically, fewer catboys were involved)

But as the movie gets near to ending and people are absorbed in the climax, Sei leans over and kisses Aoba softly, mouth on his, a flicker of hot tongue -- and Aoba pushes away the earlier thought, because the past doesn't matter. It's about what they have now. 

***

The next time he and Ren make love, Sei shows up not as they do it, but after their afterglow, when they've started to shift against each other with the intention of round two. He doesn't say anything, just looks up at Aoba with wide eyes, half an ask and half a dare, and shifts against him too.

"Mm," Aoba says, half a muffled, embarrassed sound, and half-agreement.

They make love. It's soft and tender and careful and weird, and Sei is gentle inside him, moving like he anticipates it to hurt; Aoba shows otherwise.

"I'm going to sleep again," he says after, curled against Aoba's shoulder. "Good night, Aoba."

"Not -- for good?"

"No," Sei says, and lets out a sighing laugh. "No, sorry, I -- I just meant, I'm going to sleep. I'll see you sometime. Tomorrow or the next day or -- When I wake up again."

Aoba lets out his own breath, and kisses Sei's forehead. "Goodnight, Brother," he says. "I love you."

And then Ren is blinking sleepy eyes at him, sated, and curls closer. "Aoba."

"Mmm...?"

"...I'm worn out now..."

"Well, twice. Your body, anyway..."

"My body..." Ren muses, and then nods. "We should sleep."

"Yes. Goodnight, Ren. I love you."

"Goodnight, Aoba," Ren says. "I love you. Goodnight, Sei."

Sei doesn't answer, and maybe he's completely asleep, but, after all, maybe he isn't.


End file.
